Title: Pan-Asianism in Twentieth-century Indian and Japanese Art: The Resilience of a Shared Artistic and Cultural Heritage
Stream: Arts Theory and Criticism
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Amita Kini-Singh, Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, India
Abstract:
The artistic exchanges of the early twentieth century in India and Japan which defined the trajectory of Asian modernism were made possible due to cultural, commercial and religious crossovers of the first millennium CE and the Edo Period during which Japanese artists and artisans looked to India for inspiration. In 1902 and the ensuing decades, the interactions between intellectuals like Okakura Kakuzō and Rabindranath Tagore, and their close circle of artists, were the direct outcome of the centuries-old common aesthetic heritage of India and Japan - one that resiliently stood the test of time, despite the absence of any direct contact between the two countries. It is these cultural and artistic histories from the sixth century CE and the advent of Buddhism to the Meiji Restoration in Japan, that evoked in the mind of Japanese Pan-Asianists the possibilities of strengthening Asian solidarity as a reaction to the westernisation policy of the newly-formed imperial government. Indian and Japanese artists looked upon the cross-fertilisation of Pan-Asian ideals in art as a means to challenge western academic art and the colonial aesthetics that had dominated Indian and Meiji art at the turn of the twentieth century. This paper traces the origins of the Pan-Asian movement in art and identifies examples of mutual influence amidst artworks of Indian and Japanese artists, in order to demonstrate the resilience of a shared cultural past and to build a case for the continued presence of artistic connections in the contemporary art of the two nations.
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